I don’t know if 10 reviews is a milestone, and I truly don’t know how many people are actually reading these, but it feels like an accomplishment and I wanted to review a really fantastic brewery to celebrate. So we headed up north to McKinney to check out Tupps Brewery.
Located in the historic Mill District of downtown McKinney, Tupps Brewing is in one of the coolest properties I’ve ever seen visiting a brewery. Tupps has quite the story as the founder started brewing in his garage, moved to a commercial location, and then last year moved into a 120 year old grain mill. They sit on a 4 acre property with multiple buildings, so it depends on which way you enter as to what you come into first. The main building is the grain mill which has 3 different step levels to it. The main bar sits on the highest level with their massive menu in between 2 large, decorative whiskey barrels with the taps built in. The merch and to go fridge is to the right, along with nice, large bathrooms. Tupps also serves wine, cider, and seltzer, but that’s not what we we’re here for. They have a large food menu and it all looked very appetizing, but we weren’t here for the food either. The bottom 2 levels are full of retro furniture and, I assume, old equipment and furniture from the previous grain mill. The bottom level has a bunch of big screen TV’s that were filled with college football. There’s even another upstairs balcony level if you want a sky view of the entire building.
On either side of the taproom is an open air patio with plenty of seating. As you make your way through one of the patios, you come to the Beer Hall. It’s a large, covered patio with TV’s and a smaller bar with only a handful of taps available. It’d be a great event space if it’s cool enough, and they also use it as a game watching area. Further down past the Beer Hall sits a newly built structure where the actual brewery sits. Obviously I hate when the brewing equipment is separate from the taproom, but I’ll make an exception for Tupps because of the unique and historic building they chose. Hopefully soon they’ll offer tours of the brewery because I’d love to see inside that massive building.
I want to start by saying they have a limited menu to choose from if you want a flight, and I don’t know why since every beer is on tap. I understand if it’s can pours to not offer them on flights, but I couldn’t make sense of the reasoning here. We didn’t get to try as many brews as we’d have liked, so that was a disappointing start.
We were on a fall kick this day, so we’ll start with the Pumpkin Bock. It’s supposed to be their regular bock with pumpkin flavors, but there wasn’t a lot of pumpkin that we could taste. It’s not a bad beer, as their bock is well done. But if you’re going to make something pumpkin flavored, it needs to be stronger. At 5.6% ABV it’s a good beer to sit around and enjoy when the cooler weather comes in, but still a slight disappointment.
The next brew had the same problem as we sampled the Full Grown Jack, a 12.1% ABV stout with pumpkin flavors. Again, the pumpkin flavor was there, but not very strong. It’s their regular stout, which is a really good stout. But too little pumpkin flavor really made this one disappoint as well.
One that we did enjoy was the 8.0% ABV Farmhouse Ale. Farmhouse Ale’s were first brewed by farmers using their own grain, during the cooler months. They are known to be dry, fruity, and earthy, and this definitely has those characteristics. They describe it to be brewed with lemon and basil, but I didn’t detect those specific flavors. It had the dry, fruity flavor traditionally known with this type of brew, and we really enjoyed it.
Last up was our favorite of the day the Oktoberfest, a 5.5% ABV marzen lager. Marzen Oktoberfest’s are traditionally rich, malty, bready, and slightly sweet from the malts used. This is one of the best examples of that I’ve ever had. Exactly what an Oktoberfest is supposed to be, perfectly balanced and brewed.
Overall we loved our visit to Tupps Brewing. It’s one of the most unique and fun environments for a brewery. The beer we sampled today was a little disappointing because we love pumpkin brews. But they had some excellent beers and they definitely know how to brew. Solely because of the beers being disappointing this day, Tupps is getting 8 🍺. I know they can brew top notch beer because I’ve had it before, but today was just not great. Maybe we’ll do a revisit because this is one of the best atmospheres we’ve ever been to for a brewery. I absolutely recommend taking a trip up 75 to visit Tupps. And Always Drink Local!
